I visited one of my friends in Bangalore during my Christmas holidays. My friend was invited by another friend of hers for a Christmas Eve party and asked me to join her. Although I was reluctant to go for the fear of being an unwelcome guest, but I agreed as the host knew about my visit prior to my arrival and had counted me in too. The lady who hosted the party was my friend’s colleague. She was a divorcee and was staying alone.

It was a grand party and lots of people did not know each other. People were dancing frantically and drinks and food were served. The host joined us on the dance floor after ensuring that everything was fine. At that time, I could not stop thinking about my aunt who got divorced around 15 years back and has practically no social life until she got married again. She was forced to live in isolation as the divorcees were not considered a part of the mainstream. These days, however, the number of divorces are increasing as is the acceptance of divorcees in the society and they are living a dignified life according to their own will. The social stigma attached to the divorcees is getting bleaker with each passing day.

It was 2 o’ clock. The party was over, dancing had stopped and people were fighting with the hangover. However nobody was able to sleep and casual chatting was on in smaller groups. That was when our host narrated about her daughter, telling how she used to put her to sleep with a lullaby. She started laughing as she recalled that after the lullaby was over, she herself used to sleep while the daughter was still awake. I suddenly felt that all the dancing and drinking could not make her forget the daughter who was not there with her at that moment.

It is when parents get separated that one parent continuously suffers the loss of their child. The other triumphant parent who “owns” the child suffers even more as he/she does not know how to play both the roles of father and mother at the same time. More than the parents the child suffers who has been separated from one parent and has no say in that. One can very well understand the plight of a little girl who does not have her mother by her anymore to put her to sleep.

I would like to conclude saying that it is fine to have differences between spouses but parents should not have differences between them. One can always be or have an ex-husband, an ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend or an ex-boyfriend for that matter if we consider our live-in relationships age but one can never be or have an ex-father or ex-mother and the children can never be ex-children.
Sonal Arora